Adam Giannopoulos, February 24th, 2017What does synchronicity have to do with natural gas production at the bottom of lake Erie? Absolutely nothing... and everything. Synchronicity is a term first coined by Carl Jung, essentially meaning "meaningful coincidence" to most of us. When synchronicity happens you'd better be paying attention, synchronicity comes from the universe and it has the power to change your life, it is always deeply personal to the individual or individuals that experience it. Synchronicity is the universe trying to nudge you in a certain direction, for the universe knows your ultimate purpose here, and it will try to help you if you allow it. Synchronicities have been happening to me my entire life, and I noticed most of them, but I dismissed every single one as coincidence or luck, until the "big one" happened in early August, 2012, big enough to force me to question my own perception of reality. Perhaps not surprisingly, it was a synchronistic event on Monday, August 8th, 1994 that started this lake development story, and it was yet another synchronistic event that finished it, on Thursday, October 6th, 2016, and that was the installation of two CDi3.FTe switchers in the sour gas field offshore of Morpeth, Ontario. The event was synchronistic because we had been waiting on weather for some time, but it looked like we would get a window of opportunity the week of October 1st, you simply can't pick a date that time of year. On October 5th, I was up in the near North setting up LoggerLand4 and hoping that the leaves would turn soon, I wanted to photograph them. The call came in the afternoon on the 5th, the message was that the 6th looked not too bad, waves would be subsiding somewhat as the day progressed, and if the universe wants this who am I to say no, leaves be damned, 3.5 hours driving south on the 5th, 2 hours sleep, 3.5 hours to Erieau, Ontario on the 6th, 2 hours out on the boat to the locations, 8 hours of installations, 2 hours back in, 3.5 hours driving back to Welland, 20 or so hours awake on the 6th with little sleep the night before. So, synchronicity is the reason I see a sunrise over lake Erie instead of a sunset, not to mention that I also got to wish someone a Happy Synchronistic Birthday!!!Plenty of info on synchronicity here: http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/ciencia/ciencia_synchronicity.htm. With lake-related R&D finished, it is now time to introduce the machinery likely to be used at the bottom of the lake now, as well as in the future.

PDL/CDi History Version 1.0: CDi3.FTe Switcher Morphs!

"But I thought you said the R&D was finished at the end of 2015!". No, I said the BULK of the R&D was finished at the end of 2015... and there was a nag, and this nag has been nagging at me since day one, I took care of this nag last time out of Erieau, see above, no more nagging from the sour gas field. You see, everything I built down here the last twenty years works fine in the sweet gas fields east of Morpeth, but sour gas is nasty stuff and it will hurt the equipment exposed to it eventually. We call sour gas "sour" because it smells like rotten eggs. Sour gas contains a percentage of H2S, Hydrogen Sulfide, in high-enough concentrations it can kill a person quickly. H2S also has an appetite for carbon, it turns high carbon steel into powder in short order, the only metallurgy we're aware of that can withstand long-term exposure to H2S is Hastelloy or C276 high-nickel stainless steel. The original plan for the FTe version of the CDi3 was to use a solenoid and a single pressure transmitter to measure flow, like this, but because of the stunning performance of the Keller transmitters in digital mode, decided to use two single transmitters instead. These single Kellers have Hastelloy front ends, and as such are sour gas safe. Because the resulting system is powered by compressed air, no parts are exposed to sour gas except for the pressure transmitters. The two FTe switchers installed October 2016 are modified P7s, originally built in 2010, in the field since June, 2011.

Routine functions of the equipment are a) plunger lifts with or without a plunger on individual wells and b) intermitters, also known as programmable chokes for a group of wells. Production optimization of the welbore means using a plunger lift to lift fluids, production optimization of the gathering system means using an intermitter to move fluids along the gathering system or to hold back production of fluids

A production optimization paper was written in 2000 by one of our own, Dan Sparkes, the PDL/CDi bible is now online in html

A plunger lift, as applied at lake bottom, switches an individual well on and off approximately 18 times as often as an intermitter, a typical plunger lift cycle time is 2 hours, a typical intermitter cycle time is 36 hours

A single tank of compressed air, filled to 3,000 psi, will last for 100 days in a plunger lift application, in other words, there is enough air in a single tank for 1200 cycles. The same system in an intermitter application has enough air for 1200x36=43,200 hours or 1,800 days or 4.9 years!!!...

...and that means, for the first time EVER, it is now possible AND economical to use an intermitter at ANY location at the bottom of lake Erie...

...and that means, the solenoids we use are good, before repairs are necessary, for at least 12,000 cycles... which in an intermitter application is... 12,000x36=432,000 hours, or 18,000 days, or 49 years...